SkepticalJay
Rising Star
SWIM wanted me to post his trip report here. The following is his experience told from his point of view:
Being new to DMT and having zero experience with other hallucinogens, I decided to avoid breakthrough doses for a while. I had smoked it once the night before alone, but just a very light dose. During that episode, I briefly experienced seeing fractals, and a window made of flowing light which appeared above my head. Through the window wafted ethereal, angelic, vapor-like tentacles, reaching out to me; almost caressing me. It was a euphoric experience, one that I wanted to replicate again. My initial experience taught me that, through low doses and understanding the proper moment to release the smoke from my lungs, I could avoid going too far, remaining in every day reality while enjoying the strange interplay between the DMT-verse and my surroundings.
It is important that I explain the setting of the room I was in. I was in a friend's room, among friends, roughly seven of us total. Most of us were inexperienced with DMT (one of us had tried a low dose years prior). In the middle of the room was an enormous bean bag chair which was to become the throne of the person tripping. Above hung maroon colored curtains that canopied the seating area. The bean bag chair was also atop a rug, the edges of which ended roughly where the curtain canopy ended above. Later, upon reflection, I realized that this set up resembled a sort of stage, which will become relevant later when I explain my trip. The room also had a wooden poll in the middle which had multi-colored Christmas lights on it. When I tripped the room lights were off with the Christmas lights on (obviously).
The trip I am about to describe was actually two trips, but they seem to weave a single narrative. The entire experience was audio recorded. I've listened to it in it's entirely (roughly 45 minutes) three times now reliving some of the subtler emotions of what I was going through each time. I will refer to this recording throughout my account.
The first trip began: I inhaled vapor from my VG, held it, felt that familiar heady feeling like I have just become a little lighter. I exhaled. "Fractals everywhere" I said. They began at the celing and ended at the floor. Amazing colors too distant in my memory now to recall their full brilliance. These sort of faded, though, as the initial intensity began to diminish. I was fixated on the reflection from the Christmas lights on the ceiling. It created a sea of color and it was now an ocean flowing rhythmically. Suddenly, from within that ocean I thought I spied a woman's face. As if to answer this thought, the face became more defined. What was once the profile of the face turned to face me as if to say "So, you noticed me. And now I notice you". We did not communicate in words like that though. Instead, we communicated in what I can only describe as a language of emotion by which we set a tone that somehow conveyed the subtlety of our "conversation" much more effectively. My first thought was, "Hmm, I wonder if her face will turn scary?" As if to answer the woman's face took a demonic dimension. Oddly, though, I was not scared, I simply thought "No, I liked you better before?". She responded by looking as she had when I noticed her, and we continued to view each other with great interest. Our interaction became playful in a way. My trip ended and I was left with a longing to interact with that entity for longer.
Some time passed, others had their turn, no breakthroughs. I wanted to go again. I brought the spice, so why not. I decided to pack a bigger bowl this time, did not measure out my dose as I was without a scale. I knew the contents was enough for a breakthrough, but I dared not smoke it all. I just wanted enough so that if my first measured rip didn't send me far enough, I'd have the option to go back for more.
I ripped. The fractals returned. The whole room began to breathe, especially those red curtains. I was this rythmic breathing, set to a subtle vibration. The light in the room began expanding, and my friend in the light began dancing again. She came out, but this time she gave me a challenging stare. Again, we were speaking in tones and I would describe the tone she set as being challenging, saying something along the lines of "So, you've returned. But why? What are you here for?" There was no humor, there was a level of seriousness as if the time for playing was over.
Looking back on it now, I cannot explain why I thought the actions I took next would be a good idea, maybe it's just my nature to push the envelope, to flirt with disaster only to pull myself back from the brink. But I decided to pick the VG back up and give it another rip, but only enough to push me right to the edge. I believed I would know when to stop pulling and when to release the smoke from my lungs. I soon found out how wrong I was to trust my ability to judge such things.
I wanted to answer this beings challenge in a way, not that I felt we were in competition, but I felt like she had some message for me and I just couldn't get to it at the level I was currently at. So I took a rip...a big rip...and I held...
...the breathing of reality took on a new intensity...
...Fractals, gigantic. And they were connected now in an impossible way forming what I can only describe as a grid. The grid connecting all things together, all reality, and the more fundamental reality that lie beneath it. I had seen this grid as a feint outline in the background of my previous trips, but now it was coming front and center. This was the brink, but now I could not stop. The face made of many lights was still there. It was still, but it too took on greater intensity. The tone changed again: "Remember. You asked for this."
What happened next is a blur in my memory. In fact, it was only hours later that I recalled the tunnel which was made of the same fractal grid I described prior. At the same time this fractal grid appeared to be made of many eyes, much like some Tool album cover art I once saw - same in concept at least, but more vivid and much harder to describe fully. Compounding my inability to describe is the fact that this traveling beyond the grid happened so fast and was overshadowed by everything that followed.
What followed? That's a great question. I'm still not sure completely. When I try to speak intelligibly about it, I end up speaking sentences which are contradictions in terms: "The everything of nothingness". The only possible way I can gesture toward what I experienced is to speak metaphorically, but the actual experience remains ineffable. It was as if I was opened up and then the universe came along with an infinite amount of liquid which contained all the knowledge of the cosmos. This liquid was then poured into me and overflowed out of me, but this liquid was also a solvent and I - all the things that make me "me" - begin dissolving into the eternity of nothingness and all.
This was absolutely terrifying. I felt my ego completely begin to give way. I was losing myself and I mustered all my will to keep it together lest I go insane and never recover. When I did this I briefly found myself back in the room. The six friends who came to trip or watch others trip were there. I could see my surroundings, but they were superimposed over the backdrop of the all encompassing all. And it was pulling me relentlessly, a consciousness uncompromising that would not take "no" for an answer. At this point I actually said something, calm, measured and slow: "I could totally freak out right now". And I could of. I considered it, but realized it would be no use. The only thing I could do was submit, but submitting was also impossible, the more I tried to accept the experience, the more I realized there was too much to accept, too much information. Interestingly enough, I was only 50 seconds into my trip when I uttered the words "I could totally freak out now". It mine as well have been 30 times as long...not that time existed where I went anyway.
And when I as in the room staring at my spectators, I was equally horrified. Their collective stares seemed to mock me. How could they understand what I'm going through? Why can't they help me? I felt as if I was a caged animal, totally vulnerable - that was my initial though - but later I realized it was more like a side show, the chair and the rug were the stage, the curtains above me were like stage curtains. My spectators mocked me with their gaze as did the universe itself: "you asked for this"
This process of my ego being almost annhilated only to be scraped back together by my will continued for what seemed like infinite iterations. Later I described it as getting the spiritual shit kicked out of me. It was an exhausting process.
When I finally reentered my body and I knew I would not leave again, I was still tripping very hard, but the tone of the trip changed for the better. "OK..I'm back." I said softly. I started explaining what had happened (tried to anyway), but realized it was too soon. Someone in the room tried to ask me a question and I just said "Wait...just let me enjoy the last of this". Now the room was completely peaceful. Everything was still breathing but I was safe. I looked up to see the lady face made of a sea of light. She now had arms and she was resting her head in one of her hands looking at me softly, lovingly, maternally. We spoke in our language of emotional tones again: "Now, you understand. You made it and I am proud of you. Everything will be ok. Now you understand". Despite the terrifying ordeal I had just experienced, the only thing I felt was overwhelming gratitude. Even thinking about it now brings powerful emotions back. When I hear my own voice on the recording say "Just let me enjoy this", I remember that deep sense of peace.
As I said after my trip to my friends, I honestly do not remember 90% of that trip. So much happened in hyperspace, so much information at once. I briefly remember an Egyptian theme at one point, with a tribunal of Egyptian Gods looking at me much like the spectators in the room were, but all those images really seem beside the point anyway.
I think some would describe what I've written as a "bad trip", but I simply cannot put it in those terms. When asked by one of my friends afterward how I could describe it if not "bad" I replied with "enlightening". Somehow, it was exactly what I needed to have happen. Anyway, there is simply so much to integrate from this that I cannot justify going back for some time. I don't think I knew how to respect the spice before this experience and now I am simply saturated with respect. Directly after, I considered never going back as that terrifying ordeal still felt very close. Now, two days later, I already feel this deep longing to connect with the source of that terror again as odd as that may sound. But, as I said, not for some time.
I do not suppose I will touch DMT for at least a few months and the next time I do it, I will make sure the conditions are such that I treat it ritualistically, perhaps a private wilderness retreat with fasting involved.
In any case, I received everything I was seeking from this experience and so much more. I make no assumptions about whether what I experienced was real in the objective sense or whether it was just interaction within my own psychology. It doesn't matter. There is another sense of the word "real" that is far more important: that which matters. In this sense of the word "real", this was without a doubt the realest 7 minutes of my life. I don't imagine I'll ever be the same.
Deepest thanks to all the people here at the Nexus, many of whom have unknowingly been my teachers over the past two months. Your experiences and wisdom helped me to this point and I will always be grateful toward the resources granted by this community. Thank you.
Being new to DMT and having zero experience with other hallucinogens, I decided to avoid breakthrough doses for a while. I had smoked it once the night before alone, but just a very light dose. During that episode, I briefly experienced seeing fractals, and a window made of flowing light which appeared above my head. Through the window wafted ethereal, angelic, vapor-like tentacles, reaching out to me; almost caressing me. It was a euphoric experience, one that I wanted to replicate again. My initial experience taught me that, through low doses and understanding the proper moment to release the smoke from my lungs, I could avoid going too far, remaining in every day reality while enjoying the strange interplay between the DMT-verse and my surroundings.
It is important that I explain the setting of the room I was in. I was in a friend's room, among friends, roughly seven of us total. Most of us were inexperienced with DMT (one of us had tried a low dose years prior). In the middle of the room was an enormous bean bag chair which was to become the throne of the person tripping. Above hung maroon colored curtains that canopied the seating area. The bean bag chair was also atop a rug, the edges of which ended roughly where the curtain canopy ended above. Later, upon reflection, I realized that this set up resembled a sort of stage, which will become relevant later when I explain my trip. The room also had a wooden poll in the middle which had multi-colored Christmas lights on it. When I tripped the room lights were off with the Christmas lights on (obviously).
The trip I am about to describe was actually two trips, but they seem to weave a single narrative. The entire experience was audio recorded. I've listened to it in it's entirely (roughly 45 minutes) three times now reliving some of the subtler emotions of what I was going through each time. I will refer to this recording throughout my account.
The first trip began: I inhaled vapor from my VG, held it, felt that familiar heady feeling like I have just become a little lighter. I exhaled. "Fractals everywhere" I said. They began at the celing and ended at the floor. Amazing colors too distant in my memory now to recall their full brilliance. These sort of faded, though, as the initial intensity began to diminish. I was fixated on the reflection from the Christmas lights on the ceiling. It created a sea of color and it was now an ocean flowing rhythmically. Suddenly, from within that ocean I thought I spied a woman's face. As if to answer this thought, the face became more defined. What was once the profile of the face turned to face me as if to say "So, you noticed me. And now I notice you". We did not communicate in words like that though. Instead, we communicated in what I can only describe as a language of emotion by which we set a tone that somehow conveyed the subtlety of our "conversation" much more effectively. My first thought was, "Hmm, I wonder if her face will turn scary?" As if to answer the woman's face took a demonic dimension. Oddly, though, I was not scared, I simply thought "No, I liked you better before?". She responded by looking as she had when I noticed her, and we continued to view each other with great interest. Our interaction became playful in a way. My trip ended and I was left with a longing to interact with that entity for longer.
Some time passed, others had their turn, no breakthroughs. I wanted to go again. I brought the spice, so why not. I decided to pack a bigger bowl this time, did not measure out my dose as I was without a scale. I knew the contents was enough for a breakthrough, but I dared not smoke it all. I just wanted enough so that if my first measured rip didn't send me far enough, I'd have the option to go back for more.
I ripped. The fractals returned. The whole room began to breathe, especially those red curtains. I was this rythmic breathing, set to a subtle vibration. The light in the room began expanding, and my friend in the light began dancing again. She came out, but this time she gave me a challenging stare. Again, we were speaking in tones and I would describe the tone she set as being challenging, saying something along the lines of "So, you've returned. But why? What are you here for?" There was no humor, there was a level of seriousness as if the time for playing was over.
Looking back on it now, I cannot explain why I thought the actions I took next would be a good idea, maybe it's just my nature to push the envelope, to flirt with disaster only to pull myself back from the brink. But I decided to pick the VG back up and give it another rip, but only enough to push me right to the edge. I believed I would know when to stop pulling and when to release the smoke from my lungs. I soon found out how wrong I was to trust my ability to judge such things.
I wanted to answer this beings challenge in a way, not that I felt we were in competition, but I felt like she had some message for me and I just couldn't get to it at the level I was currently at. So I took a rip...a big rip...and I held...
...the breathing of reality took on a new intensity...
...Fractals, gigantic. And they were connected now in an impossible way forming what I can only describe as a grid. The grid connecting all things together, all reality, and the more fundamental reality that lie beneath it. I had seen this grid as a feint outline in the background of my previous trips, but now it was coming front and center. This was the brink, but now I could not stop. The face made of many lights was still there. It was still, but it too took on greater intensity. The tone changed again: "Remember. You asked for this."
What happened next is a blur in my memory. In fact, it was only hours later that I recalled the tunnel which was made of the same fractal grid I described prior. At the same time this fractal grid appeared to be made of many eyes, much like some Tool album cover art I once saw - same in concept at least, but more vivid and much harder to describe fully. Compounding my inability to describe is the fact that this traveling beyond the grid happened so fast and was overshadowed by everything that followed.
What followed? That's a great question. I'm still not sure completely. When I try to speak intelligibly about it, I end up speaking sentences which are contradictions in terms: "The everything of nothingness". The only possible way I can gesture toward what I experienced is to speak metaphorically, but the actual experience remains ineffable. It was as if I was opened up and then the universe came along with an infinite amount of liquid which contained all the knowledge of the cosmos. This liquid was then poured into me and overflowed out of me, but this liquid was also a solvent and I - all the things that make me "me" - begin dissolving into the eternity of nothingness and all.
This was absolutely terrifying. I felt my ego completely begin to give way. I was losing myself and I mustered all my will to keep it together lest I go insane and never recover. When I did this I briefly found myself back in the room. The six friends who came to trip or watch others trip were there. I could see my surroundings, but they were superimposed over the backdrop of the all encompassing all. And it was pulling me relentlessly, a consciousness uncompromising that would not take "no" for an answer. At this point I actually said something, calm, measured and slow: "I could totally freak out right now". And I could of. I considered it, but realized it would be no use. The only thing I could do was submit, but submitting was also impossible, the more I tried to accept the experience, the more I realized there was too much to accept, too much information. Interestingly enough, I was only 50 seconds into my trip when I uttered the words "I could totally freak out now". It mine as well have been 30 times as long...not that time existed where I went anyway.
And when I as in the room staring at my spectators, I was equally horrified. Their collective stares seemed to mock me. How could they understand what I'm going through? Why can't they help me? I felt as if I was a caged animal, totally vulnerable - that was my initial though - but later I realized it was more like a side show, the chair and the rug were the stage, the curtains above me were like stage curtains. My spectators mocked me with their gaze as did the universe itself: "you asked for this"
This process of my ego being almost annhilated only to be scraped back together by my will continued for what seemed like infinite iterations. Later I described it as getting the spiritual shit kicked out of me. It was an exhausting process.
When I finally reentered my body and I knew I would not leave again, I was still tripping very hard, but the tone of the trip changed for the better. "OK..I'm back." I said softly. I started explaining what had happened (tried to anyway), but realized it was too soon. Someone in the room tried to ask me a question and I just said "Wait...just let me enjoy the last of this". Now the room was completely peaceful. Everything was still breathing but I was safe. I looked up to see the lady face made of a sea of light. She now had arms and she was resting her head in one of her hands looking at me softly, lovingly, maternally. We spoke in our language of emotional tones again: "Now, you understand. You made it and I am proud of you. Everything will be ok. Now you understand". Despite the terrifying ordeal I had just experienced, the only thing I felt was overwhelming gratitude. Even thinking about it now brings powerful emotions back. When I hear my own voice on the recording say "Just let me enjoy this", I remember that deep sense of peace.
As I said after my trip to my friends, I honestly do not remember 90% of that trip. So much happened in hyperspace, so much information at once. I briefly remember an Egyptian theme at one point, with a tribunal of Egyptian Gods looking at me much like the spectators in the room were, but all those images really seem beside the point anyway.
I think some would describe what I've written as a "bad trip", but I simply cannot put it in those terms. When asked by one of my friends afterward how I could describe it if not "bad" I replied with "enlightening". Somehow, it was exactly what I needed to have happen. Anyway, there is simply so much to integrate from this that I cannot justify going back for some time. I don't think I knew how to respect the spice before this experience and now I am simply saturated with respect. Directly after, I considered never going back as that terrifying ordeal still felt very close. Now, two days later, I already feel this deep longing to connect with the source of that terror again as odd as that may sound. But, as I said, not for some time.
I do not suppose I will touch DMT for at least a few months and the next time I do it, I will make sure the conditions are such that I treat it ritualistically, perhaps a private wilderness retreat with fasting involved.
In any case, I received everything I was seeking from this experience and so much more. I make no assumptions about whether what I experienced was real in the objective sense or whether it was just interaction within my own psychology. It doesn't matter. There is another sense of the word "real" that is far more important: that which matters. In this sense of the word "real", this was without a doubt the realest 7 minutes of my life. I don't imagine I'll ever be the same.
Deepest thanks to all the people here at the Nexus, many of whom have unknowingly been my teachers over the past two months. Your experiences and wisdom helped me to this point and I will always be grateful toward the resources granted by this community. Thank you.
